In the land of infertility, at least for me, your cycle day really isn't your cycle day.
When we went in on May 7, that was CD11, but because I wasn't growing anything on my own, it became my new CD3. On my new CD11, I went in for an u/s, but wasn't growing anything after femara, that became my new, new CD2 and I started follistim on my new, new CD3. So, from a calendar's point of view, I'm on CD24, but from a follistim standpoint I'm on CD7. Given that we conceive, it makes it very helpful to know when (almost to the hour) that conception occurs. Why is this? Because in most cases, doctor's offices ask you when your last menstrual cycle was. Usually I just say that it doesn't matter, because we used fertility treatments and I know my conception date. But, if I answered the question they asked (LMP), I'd be off by more than three weeks.
We had an u/s on Sunday, May 19. As expected, follistim is working like a charm, but it's working too well. Estradiol level was at 156.3,which is in range of where I've been in past cycles at this point of stimming, but I had 4 follicles that were growing (11.57, 10.28, 9.88 and 9.44). This is way too many, and sized too closely together for my taste. We want ONE! So, my dose got dialed down from 50units to 25units and I had to go in this morning.
This morning's u/s revealed that we still need to drop my dose. My lining is doing great, but my measurable follicles are 13.93, 12.3 and 10.4. We need that 13.93 to take off and the 12.3 & 10.4 to either stop growing or shrink. So, we've dialed my dose down again, to 16.6, which just seems crazy to me. Via the Internet, the follistim pen is for units of 50 to 450. It takes 3 clicks on the pen to dial 25 units of follistim. So, not only am I below the advertised minimum, but I'm really below the advertised minimum. I just don't understand why the oral meds do absolutely nothing for me, but I can get the tiniest bit of follistim and I get so many follicles. I know I can't go back in time and change anything, but I really wish we would have started with 25 instead of 50 so that we could try to get only one follicle growing, instead of 3!
When we triggered with Tittle and Gus, my 2 lead follicles were 16.5 and 14.8, so I'm nervous to be in that situation again. What do we do if we are in that situation? What happens if we conceive twins? Do we cancel this cycle and start at 25 units next month? I just did a quick calculation. The difference between my 2 lead follicles with Gus and Tittle was 1.7; right now the difference is 1.63. This is too close for my taste. I know that 12.3 is really too small to release a mature egg, but we need to make sure that it stays too small to release a mature egg. I know that no matter how many eggs we release, there is always a chance that we won't get pregnant, but I would feel much for calm if I only had one growing in there.
Jon and I have some talking and deciding to do tonight and we have another u/s tomorrow. I hope that all this stress and scenario running and decision making is for naught, because we'll go in tomorrow with one, clear, leading follicle while the others are shrinking back to nothing.
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